Confessions
by Lynse
Summary: Follows Connections. Danny's secret's not as safe as he thinks, what with Maddie unable to ignore her wild suspicions any longer and piecing things together and Jack asking questions all on his own.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: All right, this follows my story _Connections_, and it is written for anyone who requested a sequel and/or didn't realize I'd actually marked _Connections_ as 'complete'. The timeline follows _D-Stabilized_ and completely ignores _Phantom Planet_, thereby going a bit AU, but that should be easy enough to figure out, given the title. Standard disclaimers apply. Enjoy!

* * *

It had been a week. Maddie wasn't sure what to do. Jazz hadn't brought the subject up again, and Danny certainly hadn't. And neither had she.

Because she wasn't sure how.

It had all been so _simple_. At first, anyway. She'd readily admit that she hadn't known what to think when she'd first seen Danny Phantom get hit by the Booo-merang, the tracking invention that had somehow keyed itself onto her son, Danny Fenton. But then the pieces had begun coming together. Phantom had formed a connection with Danny. Danny was contaminated by Phantom's ecto-signature. He'd been afraid that their love of science, their thirst for discovery, would override their concern for his safety, so he hadn't told them. He'd kept it a secret.

But the secret-keeping had come with other burdens. He tried to avoid them, to dissociate himself from their ghost-related family activities. Phantom had preyed on Danny's innocence, his gullibility, his naivety, his natural desire to help others but keep his head down at the same time, avoiding unnecessary attention.

And Phantom, she'd believed, had managed to gain Danny's friendship, to lull him into a false sense of reality. To make him believe things that were not true, could _never_ be true. And if Phantom had asked something, enlisting Danny's help, Danny had complied, thinking he was helping a friend. If Phantom wanted to know about their latest inventions, Danny would tell him. If he needed the Ghost Portal open, or another Fenton Thermos, or even a warning that they were going to hunt for him, Danny would be able to help.

Danny had begun to depend upon Phantom's friendship. He'd skipped class to meet with him, snuck out at night, ignored his homework and his chores, his family and his friends, in favour of a ghost's company. She and Jack had made their own excuses for Danny's behaviour, and Jazz and Sam and Tucker had covered for him repeatedly, and they'd believed whatever excuse they'd been given. They hadn't wanted to see it.

She hadn't wanted to see it.

And now she couldn't ignore it.

Phantom was just supposed to have formed a connection with Danny. A strong one, granted, but only a connection nonetheless, something that could be broken. All connections could be broken. But this…. She wasn't so sure this could be, not anymore.

It wasn't just the assumption that Phantom had overshadowed Danny—overshadowed both her children, in fact—to make her believe the impossible. To make her question her son's sanity or the reliability of the years of science she had behind her. To make her question everything.

She could have ignored it, pushed it off as a cruel trick of Phantom's, if she hadn't uncovered a smidgeon of truth, something that, in one light, could be seen as a modicum of proof.

The 'on' button was on the inside of the portal.

The button that wasn't supposed to exist, to her knowledge, and very likely the thing that had ensured that the Fenton Ghost Portal had failed to activate when they'd first plugged it in, had had to have been turned on. She knew that.

She also remembered, all too clearly, what she and Jack had been told by Danny and his friends upon their return to the lab that day. The day the Ghost Portal had begun to work. The day of Danny's accident.

"…_just tripped…"_

"…_must've hit something…"_

"…_cords were twisted, might've been a bad connection…"_

"…_had to plug things back in, probably got 'em in differently or something…"_

"…_got a bit of a shock, but, really, Mom, it's nothing…"_

"…_not much more than a bit of static…"_

"…_doesn't need to go to the hospital, right, Danny?"_

"…_perfectly fine…"_

"…_and, hey, look, it's working, so that's good, right?"_

The garbled words of the chattering children swam in her mind as she thought of it. Sam's quick reassurances that Danny was fine and did _not_ need to go to the hospital. Tucker's slightly nervous look, what she'd always chalked up to the mere mention of a hospital visit, as he steadily pointed out what might have gone wrong when they'd first tried activating the Fenton Portal and how Danny might have, in a fit of sheer dumb luck, been able to fix it. And Danny's own self-conscious smile as he half-heartedly recounted what had happened when he'd done the very thing they'd warned him against time and again—playing with their inventions, especially without supervision—and how he'd gotten lucky. How the consequences, this time, hadn't really had any effect.

They'd monitored him after that, of course, but aside from a few irregularities that became stable, Danny appeared to be perfectly fine. He was a bit jumpier, admittedly. A tad more clumsy than she'd remembered at first, but that had gone away. He'd gotten more sure-footed, more confident and even stealthy, as time had gone on.

And his unexplained absences, his obviously sleepless nights and lack of effort in school, had only gotten worse.

This wasn't just overshadowing. It wasn't just a simple connection, easily broken. Now, she wasn't even sure it was a complicated connection. It was….

Oh, God….

"_I guess I should have unplugged it before I turned it on, but in my defence, I didn't know I was pushing the 'on' button."_

"_It was just an accident. I didn't even know this would happen. I didn't think this was even possible."_

"_I'm not a ghost, exactly. Just a half ghost."_

"_I'm Danny Phantom."_

She knew of nothing to suggest that it was possible. And over the last week, she'd _searched_. Jack had even roused himself long enough from his contemplation of his latest invention, now nearly finished, to comment upon it. She'd given him a small smile and shrugged it off, making an off-handed remark about trying to figure out why their inventions had an affinity for Danny.

Jack had shrugged and reminded her of the reason they'd settled upon: too much contamination. Danny spent more time in the lab than Jazz, and he was the one whose responsibility it was to clean it while Jazz was busy with other chores and her thesis. And Danny, unlike either of them, flatly refused to wear a HAZMAT suit, claiming he didn't need to and didn't see the point of it. And now that they could probably get him to grudgingly agree that he should have worn one all along, it was too late. The contamination was at a low level, as far as they could determine, but he was contaminated with ectoplasm nonetheless. The accident wouldn't have helped matters.

She hadn't told Jack. Not a word of it. Not her suspicions, nor her conversations with Phantom, Danny, or Jazz. Not her decontamination of Danny and Jazz and the outcome, nor the lack of apparent effect it had had, given that Danny was still skipping classes and running late and not sleeping enough at night. And she hadn't pressed Danny to keep his promise, to tell Jack what was going on.

And she hadn't tried to catch her children out in a lie, either, terrified that if she did, it would shatter the last shard of what she believed to be true. What she clung to, even though she was aware now that it was all slipping through her fingers like water.

She could stop, she knew. Just as Jazz, Danny, and Phantom had urged her to do. She could let it go. Let it drop, if not forget about it completely.

But she…. She was close. Possibly looking at the answer and not seeing it. Refusing to see it. Scientists needed to keep open minds, she knew. How often had she said that and had Jazz argue that she wasn't? How many times had Jazz said that she and Jack were operating on assumptions rather than fact?

"_You never even _saw_ a ghost until after Danny got the Ghost Portal working! How can you know that they're all evil, that they don't feel pain or have emotions? Don't you even care that none of what you're doing is ethical? If you were doing this with anything besides ghosts, you could see it, but you can't, because you're dealing with ghosts. What makes them so different, Mom, from everything else?"_

Jazz never was satisfied with any answer that Maddie gave her, and their argument on the subject was ongoing. It bubbled below the surface, creating fissures in their peaceful family life, ready to erupt if anything particularly big happened. And though Danny wasn't normally as vocal as Jazz, Maddie knew he felt exactly the same way. She just…. Now, she was terrified that she might know why.

She and Jack had never been able to extensively study Phantom. Not up close. They could just observe him from a distance. But she had to admit that he was a slight anomaly, a bit different from the other ghosts. At times. At other times, he was just like the rest of them.

"_Do you trust Danny?"_

Phantom had asked her that. Normally, in a heartbeat, she'd say yes. But now, she wasn't so sure she could. After this, well….

Danny hadn't trusted them because he thought they hadn't trusted him. And now that she had an inkling—perhaps more than that—of the reason why, she couldn't blame him. She wasn't sure she could trust him, either. And it broke her heart.

Perhaps Jazz was right. Perhaps she and Jack were too wrapped up in ghost hunting to be what they truly were: scientists. Perhaps she wasn't keeping as open a mind as she wanted to believe. Perhaps she was letting herself be blinded to the truth, letting herself be diverted along the wrong path by her assumptions, her misconceptions, her beliefs that weren't set in quite as much fact as she wanted to believe.

But if that were true, then…then all of this….

If her world was turned on its head, if what she thought was true wasn't and if what she thought was impossible was the truth, then Danny….

Danny and Phantom….

Her own _son_ and that…that…ghost, that filthy piece of ectoplasmic scum, were….

"_Mom, you don't get it, but I don't want you hounding me until you understand, okay?"_

And that was the trouble. She hadn't stopped. She'd kept pushing. And now…. Now, she thought she might understand.

At least, she did until her logical mind reasserted herself, reminded her firmly to keep herself grounded in reality. But then she'd just think about that button, the one that shouldn't exist, the one that Jack had installed, for some inane reason, on the inside of the portal. The button that she was now all too sure that Danny had inadvertently pushed, activating their invention and getting a good deal more than a slight shock. The button that Phantom knew about. The one he couldn't know about, if he were merely a ghost from the Ghost Zone.

"_Danny Phantom. Danny Fenton. Don't you get it? We're the same."_

It wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible. A human could not be a ghost, and a ghost could not be a human.

"_You're making assumptions again, Mom! Why can't you ever just contemplate the possibility that what you think is true is wrong? Danny Phantom's done a lot of good for this town. He's not the same as other ghosts, and if you'd let yourself see it, you would. But you don't."_ A quiet huff, accompanied by Jazz's sharp, intelligent glare. _"Just look at my scrapbook sometime. Try to see it the way I see it. Better yet, try to see it the way someone who didn't know anything about ghosts would see it. Don't just judge Phantom on the basis that he's a ghost. What you find might just surprise you."_

What she found surprised her very much indeed, if she even entertained the possibility that the impossible could be true. The science behind it would be phenomenal, based off obscure hypotheses that had hardly a shred of evidence for support.

And yet, some small part of her refused to ignore it for any longer. There were just too many coincidences. Too many things Phantom knew, that Danny knew, that they shouldn't. Too many excuses that lacked any ring of truth. Too many lies once she listened for them.

She wasn't sure she could broach the subject with Danny, not yet. After a few wary glances the first few days, he'd fallen back into his usual routine. Jazz had kept a watchful eye out for longer, but she, too, had begun to relax. Maddie had acted her part well. No one had noticed that anything was off.

Jazz knew the truth of it all. Maddie had no doubt about that. Whatever it was, Jazz knew. Even if Danny hadn't told her, Jazz paid enough attention to figure it out. She was…. She paid more attention to him than she or Jack, Maddie knew. And she hated to admit it, to acknowledge how much she'd ignored her children, how much she'd let herself get carried away by her work and the joy she found in it.

Why had it taken _this_ for her to notice something was going on? Why did she and Jack let themselves be lulled into a false sense of security by their own children, never rousing until someone was in danger? Why didn't they push for the truth when the excuses they heard didn't sound quite right, when things had escalated to the point that they were getting calls from Danny's teacher, Mr. Lancer? Why had they let themselves be talked into believing that it was just a phase, that it would pass, that things would sort themselves out, that it wasn't as bad as it looked?

"_Hi, Mrs. Fenton! Long day at school. Danny fell asleep. We'll just take him up to his room…."_

"_Danny just, uh, tripped over a, um, rock. Yeah. That's it. A rock. He'll be fine, Mrs. F. Don't worry. No need to get up; we know the way…."_

Even Sam and Tucker knew. Anyone Danny was close to knew. Just not them.

Perhaps the reason Danny hadn't told them wasn't because he didn't trust them, that he wasn't sure that they loved him, but because he was afraid of how they would react. That they would reject him. That they…wouldn't believe him….

That they'd find any other excuse to take the place of the truth because the truth, as it was, would leave a sour taste in their mouths.

Perhaps, if what was going on really _was_ what she…what Danny had…. Maybe, if it was, Danny might even think that it was best this way. That it…protected them. Kept them safe. That ignorance truly was bliss.

Oh, God….

What had she put her son through?

"Hey, Mom?"

Maddie started, snapping her head to the doorway of the kitchen. She was sitting at the table, and Jazz was standing opposite her, holding a handful of papers and biting her lip.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I was thinking that maybe I shouldn't just, you know, rule out any of the universities close to home. I don't _have_ to go to Harvard or Yale or—"

"Jazz, honey," Maddie said, "you know we'll be happy with wherever you choose to go, no matter how far away it is. We'll miss you, but we'll be able to visit you."

"I know, Mom. I just don't want to rule anything out before I've really looked at it. I've gotten acceptance letters from a few nearby universities and colleges, and I was wondering if maybe you'd, well, mind coming on a few tours with me this weekend? For advice?"

Maddie smiled. "Of course not, sweetie. I'd love to take you."

Jazz gave her a relieved smile. "Thanks, Mom," she said, coming over for a quick hug before disappearing again.

This would work out well, Maddie thought. She could bring the subject up when she was talking to Jazz. She could judge her reaction and then figure out if she needed to take a different tack with Danny. And Danny…. It would do Danny good to spend some more time with Jack.

Besides, Jack needed to know. She wasn't sure whether _she_ knew, really, but Jack needed to know, too. She'd told Danny as much, and she'd promised him that she'd let him tell Jack himself. She meant to keep that promise. She'd broken too many to her son already.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing this story, and just a warning in advance that the line breaks signal larger breaks of time in this chapter than they typically do in my stories.

* * *

"Danny, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Danny froze at the sound of his mother's voice. _Oh, no. Oh, no. She knows. She knows. Not good._ But a quick survey from the corner of his eye revealed that if she'd brought any weapons with her, she hadn't pulled them out. Danny relaxed again. "Sure, Mom," he said.

"Jazz and I are going away for the weekend," she began. "I'd like you to spend some time with your father."

Father-son bonding time? Again? Great. That had worked out _so_ well last time.

Well, it hadn't been as bad as he'd thought, actually. Once he'd finally gotten rid of Skulker, it had been a bit fun, surprisingly enough. The weekend trips with one of his parents usually did turn out better than he was expecting, at least. So this couldn't be too bad, right?

Yeah. Right. He'd probably had a better time with his dad when he was Danny Phantom and was able to thoroughly enjoy watching Jack beat Plasmius to a pulp for threatening his family. Not that his dad had actually known he'd been there, since he'd been invisible, but still.

"Don't give me that look, Danny," Maddie scolded gently. "We need to spend more time together as a family, and we need to spend more time with both of you on your own." She smiled at him. "I always felt we grew closer together, Danny, when we were sent off on a weekend together."

"You mean Vlad's trap?"

"Nonsense, sweetie. Vlad couldn't have known about that corrupt DALV organization's fake symposium." She paused. "Although, if you did mean Vlad's play for me, then, yes, I suppose that did seem like a bit of a trap. Who keeps helicopters on the premises but doesn't have a phone?"

"Our favourite fruit loop," Danny muttered.

Maddie frowned slightly, meaning she'd heard him, but she didn't argue, which was a definite plus. "Jazz asked me to go with her while she's looking at potential colleges, and I think it will be good for us to get to talking again. It's been far too long since we've talked about mother-daughter things, and—"

"Mom, I really don't need to hear more than that."

She laughed and reached over to ruffle his hair. "Just spend time with your father, honey. He might surprise you."

If his dad was going to surprise him, Danny figured, it would probably be with a blast from an ectogun when he mistook him for a ghost. But he forced a smile on his face anyway. "Right, Mom," he said. And he made a point of not wiping the wet kiss from his cheek until _after_ her back was turned. After all, if he'd survived a weekend with his mother before, he could survive another weekend with his father.

Heck, since he'd survived _last_ weekend with his mother, he could _definitely_ survive this weekend with his father.

* * *

"Dude, if your mom figured you should spend some time bonding with your dad, shouldn't you, you know, actually spend time with him?"

Danny sighed, pushing his empty food tray back to the middle of the table that he, Sam, and Tucker currently shared at the Nasty Burger. It was Saturday, and he'd managed to drag himself out of bed extra early to avoid his dad, despite the fact that he'd been up half the night catching ghosts. "I told you, Tuck. If I'm heading down to the lab, I'd rather not do it while Dad's working. That's just asking for something bad to happen."

"But your mom's let you off the hook, right?" Sam pressed again. She and Tucker had been grilling him over the past week on his mom's behaviour. From what Danny could gather, Sam kept expecting Maddie to suddenly figure it out.

Danny figured if she hadn't gotten it when he'd flat out told her, he was probably safe. She just thought he'd been overshadowed. And, for now, he was happy to leave it at that. It didn't make things easier for him, but at least the ghosts were less likely to try to target his ghost-hunting parents and kidnap them or something.

He'd try telling them again, once he could safely show them. Later. When he needed to. Just…not now. He wasn't…ready. Sorta.

He'd kept it secret for too long.

If he'd told them roughly a month after the accident like he'd intended, well, things would be different. But he'd kind of lost his nerve when his dad had brought out the Fenton Finder and had been going on about what he'd like to do to the ghosts he found with it, and then Jazz had intervened, and….

It wasn't just admitting that he'd kept a secret from them. It was admitting how many times he'd lied to them, how much danger he'd been in, how many times he wasn't 'fine' like he always insisted, how many illegal excursions to the Ghost Zone he and Sam and Tucker had taken…. And, hardest of all, how many times they had tried to shoot at him, tried to completely destroy him, just because he was a ghost. It was as good as telling them that very little of what they believed about ghosts was true and that, in the process of refusing to consider anything else, they had tried to kill him.

"Mom hasn't said anything," Danny said. "And she obviously hasn't told Dad, or I'd be dodging tests all weekend."

"Isn't that why you're avoiding him now?" Sam asked, raising her eyebrows.

Danny shrugged. "I'm just avoiding helping him. Let's face it, if I stuck around home, he'd have me down in the lab, helping him 'test' his latest invention."

"What is it this time?" Tucker asked.

"Grenade launcher or something. I dunno. He was doing that at some point, according to Jazz, but I don't remember when she said that. Either way, I'm a heck of a lot safer with you guys."

"You can crash at my house for a while, if you want," Sam offered. "I can tell my parents we're working on a project."

Danny grinned. He knew Sam's parents still weren't exactly endeared to him, but he also knew that they wanted the best for their little girl. Sometimes, claiming that they had schoolwork to do was the only way Danny was allowed to spend the night. While her parents might not like her choice of work partner, they weren't going to endanger her grades.

It was probably just as well they didn't know Danny's, or they'd probably phone Mr. Lancer and demand that Sam be assigned a different partner. And that would, at least half the time, result in them finding out that Mr. Lancer had never assigned any such project...

"I'll let you know if I'm desperate," Danny assured them, "but I probably shouldn't. Mom's going to want to know how well Dad and I bonded this weekend. The least I can do is only skive off one day with you guys. And I don't really want to hurt his feelings, either."

Sam snorted. "You're better than me," she said, and all three knew it. Sam would go out of her way to avoid her parents, especially if her mother had mentioned anything about getting a nice, new, pink dress for Sam to wear to the next school dance (on the assumption that someone would ask her), or to the next family reunion, or anything of that sort.

"Well, if you need to escape for just a couple of hours," Tucker began, "Mom's making meatloaf. She always makes loads, since Dad and I love it, so you can come over for supper if you want."

Sam's face darkened a bit, but she made no comment. Danny was glad, frankly; now was not the time to dredge out the old meat-versus-veggie argument, and they both knew it. Not that Danny couldn't guess what Sam would say. Something about Tucker probably finding his mom's salad also delicious, if he'd ever try it and didn't just insist that he had a gag reflex the moment a vegetable got near his mouth. "Look, Danny," Sam said, "just watch your back, okay? You're not in the clear just because your mom's gone for the weekend, even if she hasn't said anything."

"I know, I know," Danny said. But before he could suggest that they hit the arcade or something for the afternoon, a shiver ran up his spine and his ghost sense went off.

"Call if you need us," Sam said, reaching into her pocket to grab her Fenton Phone.

Danny smiled gratefully. "Thanks, guys," he said before ducking under the table and changing into Danny Phantom. It was comforting to know that they'd always have his back if he needed them to, though he'd always try his best to make sure they didn't get into too much danger. The last thing he wanted was to put anyone in danger because of who he was, but since Sam and Tucker had known from the beginning, they were well aware of what might happen.

And most of the ghosts knew better than to try to sneak up on them, since they both carried around ectoguns and were pretty quick on the draw. Jazz's reaction time was still a bit slower, but it was getting better. She'd probably be off to college before she caught up to them, though.

Danny had mixed feelings about that, mostly because he wasn't sure if she was safer or more vulnerable away from Amity Park. His parents wouldn't let her go without a bunch of weapons, of course—things like an ectogun, Fenton Peeler, and Fenton Thermos, and maybe even a Jack-o'-Nine-Tails, assuming they could get everything by her landlord—but if a ghost decided to try to track her down to get at him, he might not find out until it was too late.

One more reason, he supposed, to start trying to teleport, to see if that was a power he would eventually possess, but he was still trying to get better at duplication first. He hated being outnumbered by Vlad.

The ghost that had triggered his ghost sense, though, wasn't Plasmius. It wasn't even Skulker or, more likely, the Box Ghost. It was an ectopus. Easy enough. After checking that no one was in the way, Danny grinned and sent an ectoblast at his opponent. The sooner he could get this over with, the less likely it was that Valerie would show up as the Red Huntress. The last thing he needed was to have to worry about her, too.

* * *

"_Jack, Danny's not a ghost."_

How many times had he heard Maddie say that to him? How many times had he reluctantly agreed with her? How many times had he then suspected that _Jazz_ was the ghost and been wrong every time?

But how many inventions, how many _weapons_, was he going to have to ignore, because Danny wasn't a ghost? It couldn't just be contamination, could it? The reason they kept locking onto Danny or identifying him as a ghost? _Treating _him like a ghost? He'd said as much to Maddie, but maybe she was on to something. Maybe it was something else, something they kept missing.

The Fenton Finder. The Ghost Gabber. The Booo-merang. And who knew what else? He'd never actually _seen_ Danny wear the Spectre Deflector. And they'd only ever taken Jazz by surprise with the Fenton Xtractor. But Danny had been covered in the anti-ghost goo from the Fenton Foamer, and he didn't set off the FentonWorks Anti-Creep Mode when it was activated.

At least, he hadn't last time Jack had checked it and Danny had been home.

But Maddie was right. Danny wasn't a ghost. He was their very lovable, unfortunately fallible, very human son.

Of course, that didn't explain why he was currently trapped by the Fenton Spectre Binder.

"Don't move, Danny-boy!" Jack said, smiling encouragingly in an attempt to mask his worry. "I'll have you out of there in a jiffy."

Danny groaned. Or moaned. Or mumbled something. Jack wasn't sure. It was hard to tell, considering he hadn't found the lever that would release the gag on Danny's mouth. Besides, he was trying to focus more on getting Danny out of his latest invention. He'd never dreamed it would _target_ his son, metal arms snaking out to grab him the moment he set foot in the lab. Sure, he'd had it on. He also had the Ghost Portal open, in anticipation of catching the next ghost that tried to sneak out that way. But Danny?

He'd forgotten about Danny—and the affinity their inventions seemed to have for him.

"I'm sure it was this button," Jack muttered, pressing it. He heard a squeak from Danny and cast a worried look at his son, who was starting to turn red in the face.

Of all the weekends for Maddie and Jazz to go out to do some mother-daughter…stuff. Of course, he'd been more than willing to do the father-son thing with Danny until Danny had informed him that he had made plans with his friends and couldn't, unfortunately, help in the lab. So, Jack had spent the day working by himself and had, finally, finished his latest project. Or, at least, the latest prototype of his latest project. And then Danny had come home, walked down to the lab to ask if he could order them pizza for supper, and, well….

After a few more tries, Jack had managed only to remove the gag, allowing Danny to breathe easier. He hadn't considered its implications when designing it, short of making sure it would stuff a ghost's mouth and stop them from talking. When he wanted them to stop talking, at least, considering he did intend to use it as a questioning tool. It also helped to muffle the screams, which could grate on the nerves after a while. But on a human? It apparently made breathing difficult.

Danny was still breathing in short, rapid breaths, though Jack suspected that might be because the Spectre Binder was still squeezing him around the middle, holding his arms and legs ramrod straight and crushing them against his body.

He was beginning to think he'd crossed more than a few wires somewhere, since he still couldn't get the machine to release his son.

"Dad," Danny finally gasped out. "Plug."

Oh.

Right.

Wasting no more time, Jack promptly unplugged his machine from the wall. Being a prototype and not something that was perfected for the field, he had yet to install the converter that would allow it to run purely on ecto-energy generated from ectoplasm. "You all right, Danny?" Jack asked, trying to pry open the bindings that held Danny in place.

"I'll be fine," Danny said.

Having heard that claim from Danny multiple times over this past year, Jack wondered if he should believe it.

But he and Danny had bonded before. Over fishing and not ghost hunting, admittedly, but they had. And Jazz had responded surprisingly well to ghost hunting with him, the weekend they'd been left behind together. The weekend that, he was sure, had turned out better than both of them had expected it to. So maybe he could figure this out. He could be a good father, not the sort of father who nearly suffocated his son with his latest invention….

Jack finally managed to pry the bindings open enough for Danny to slide out. He looked…. Well, he'd be pretty black and blue in the morning, Jack figured. He'd had enough injuries over the years to recognize when something was going to bruise. As wonderful as HAZMAT suits were, they couldn't prevent everything.

"Thanks, Dad," Danny said. He winced as he rubbed his arm. "Remind me to shout before I come down here again as long as you're working on that, okay?" He muttered something about expecting a grenade launcher, but Jack ignored that. He'd been planning on building one, yes, but then he'd realized that it really wouldn't be _that_ much different from the Fenton Bazooka, so he'd starting working on the Spectre Binder. When he finished, he could go back to trying to design a weapon that would lock its missiles onto a ghost's ecto-signature.

Of course, that was all something Danny would know about, if he ever paid attention when he was telling his family what he was working on.

That inattention was worrisome, really. Especially with the way their inventions reacted around him. Everyone knew about it. Maddie had been trying to figure out why, but she hadn't gotten anywhere. Then again, she hadn't been trying various things with Danny. If they were here all weekend, then between tonight and tomorrow….

"About that, Danny," Jack said slowly. His son, who had moved towards the stairs, turned back to face him. He looked wary, and Jack couldn't blame him, given what had just happened. "You know, when you and your mother went off to that mother-son science symposium, your sister and I didn't think we'd bond. But we _did_. And I know we're not fishing this time, Dan, but I think we should try."

Danny sighed. "Dad, I don't want to go out ghost hunting with you right now, okay?"

Jack frowned. He knew he shouldn't count so much on his son's enthusiasm, but there were times when Danny showed more interest than this. Those times were few and far between, granted, but Jack still appreciated them. "We don't _have_ to go ghost hunting," he conceded.

Danny gave him a sceptical look. "Right. So what were you thinking of, then?"

"Well," Jack said slowly, "I thought you might like to make sure this didn't happen again." Danny raised an eyebrow, and Jack added, "You getting targeted, I mean." That was the other reason he'd put the targeted missile project aside for the time being; the last thing he wanted was for something to lock onto Danny and try to destroy him. Even if the missiles weren't going to be filled with anything that would harm a human, they could still pack a punch when they hit.

Danny snorted. "Dad, face it. You and Mom have tried to sort it out before and it hasn't worked. So long as you keep inventing and building stuff, I'll need to watch my back. That's not going to change."

"It can," Jack argued. "It'll just take a bit of time, and it'll be easier if you're working with me. You're the only one in this house who sets things off, Danny-boy. Once we figure out why, we'll be able to fix it, and you won't have to worry!"

The grin slid off Jack's face at Danny's alarmed look. "Um, uh, you know, that'd be great, Dad, but I just remembered I got invited out for supper at Tucker's. Bye!" He was up the stairs and out of the house before Jack could open his mouth to argue.

Which brought him back to square one, really. He was no wiser as to knowing why their inventions thought Danny was a ghost. Why they treated him, and not anyone else in the family, as if he were no better than a piece of spectral scum. And, more importantly, why it couldn't be fixed, if it were just a simple matter of adjusting for background contamination.

Not to mention, he'd hoped this would go better than it had been. The weekend, that is. Maddie was probably having a great time with Jazz. But he and Danny just hadn't, well…. They'd gotten off on the wrong foot this time.

Maddie had told him she thought he should spend more time with Danny, that they both should. And he knew she'd talked to Danny, too. Told him to make the most of the weekend or something along those lines.

He wasn't sure what Danny had said, but he did know that Danny had gone off to meet his friends earlier than usual.

Jack sighed and pulled the blueprints to the Spectre Binder toward him again. He'd tweak it a bit, see if he could fix the problem. Uncross the crossed wires and all that. Danny wouldn't stay out all night without telling them, would he? They might've gone easy on him by only grounding him for the week last weekend, but Maddie had said she thought it would be enough. That he didn't need a bigger punishment than that, not this time.

Jack had figured that meant she knew Danny had a big project coming up that he'd have to work on, probably with Sam and Tucker, so he hadn't argued. Grounding had garnered no improvement on Danny's grades, anyway. They needed to try a different approach, but Jack wasn't sure what to do. He knew that some of his grades in school hadn't been the greatest, either, though he'd been better in science, but that was because he'd spent all his spare time drawing up designs for potential ghost hunting weapons and trying to figure out if they'd work.

Danny, as far as he could tell, just goofed off. Killed time with his friends, playing video games or whatever it was kids these days did. It wasn't, as far as Jack knew, that he had any specific distractions besides his friends; he just didn't try at school, not like he used to.

He could see, sort of, even if he didn't like it, why Danny didn't put as much effort into his schoolwork as he should. He probably saw how much work Jazz was doing all the time, trying to get into the best colleges in the country and abroad, and thought that he might not have another year to just be a teenager and spend time with his friends. Danny wasn't a creature of habit, bound by routine (at least, he wasn't judging by how often he missed his curfew), but even Jack knew that all his slacking off this year would just make things harder for him in the future. With all the applicants the space program had each year, Danny would need to focus if he wanted to achieve his dream.

And Jack…. Jack didn't want to see him fail just because he didn't try hard enough now. He'd achieved his dream; he was an inventor, a ghost hunter. He'd kept his stubborn conviction that ghosts were real and that they weren't just an idle or imagined threat, and finally, after years of being laughed at, he had his proof. Ghosts were real and, in Amity Park, at least, they were destructive. What he did was necessary.

It was also a lot of fun, even if that was something he couldn't get Danny and Jazz to readily admit to, at least not in front of anyone else. He loved his work. He couldn't imagine doing anything else. He hadn't wanted to have to settle for anything else, either, so he'd worked hard. He'd kept at it, despite all the naysayers. He'd found a fast friend in Maddie and had been lucky enough to keep her by his side and have a family with her, someone who was vivacious and clever and who believed in him even when no one else did, Vlad aside. Someone who shared his passion.

He was happy.

He didn't want Danny to miss out on that just because he didn't try hard enough in high school. Danny was clever. Jack knew that. He wasn't as clever as Jazz, true, at least not in the same way, but Danny was still clever. He just didn't focus, spending the time he needed to on his studies. And Jack really didn't have any more idea of why that was than Maddie, though he knew Maddie desperately wanted to find out.

Jack had always thought that Maddie would have better luck finding out than he would. After all, this wasn't the first time that Danny had run away from him at the mere suggestion of helping out in the lab. But maybe he did just need to talk to Danny. If he could disguise it as something else, for instance, maybe Danny would listen; maybe he could try starting with the sort of thing Danny would expect from him: talking about ghosts and weaponry to hunt them. It was innocent enough, and he was sure he could convince Danny to hear him out when he tried talking about how important it was to make sure their weapons didn't target him. He had to see the logic in that. There was really no reason that they couldn't fix that if they put their minds to it, and it was better than preparing to jump out of the way every time a new weapon was activated.

That was settled, then. He wouldn't stand for Danny's arguments. He'd pick him up from Tucker's after supper, before he had a chance to sneak away, and they'd come back to the lab.

And he'd get some answers out of him, or at least make sure that Danny heard him out, no matter what it took. It was all for Danny's own good.


	3. Chapter 3

"Jazz," Maddie said at length, "I need to talk to you about Phantom." They were just settling into their hotel room for the night. Maddie hadn't dared to broach the subject over dinner, though she expected she would have been more comfortable. But she hadn't wanted to bring this up while Jazz was happily chattering away about future possibilities. Maddie had seen her daughter's delight as she'd questioned the psychology major who had agreed to take them around the campus of the one college, the camaraderie between her daughter and the cheerful girl who had led them around the second university campus not two hours from the first. The first one, a man who seemed, to Maddie at least, hardly older than a boy, had completed but two years of his undergraduate degree, while the second girl had been a year into her master's program.

Jazz had easily kept pace with them, eagerly contrasting various theories while peppering them with questions about their program, college life, and even the quality of residences on campus.

Maddie hadn't needed to be there, really. But she was happy all the same that Jazz had asked her to come along. It made her realize how grown up her dear daughter was. All too soon, she would be gone. They wouldn't see her nearly as often once she went away to school, especially if she did decide to head off to a prestigious university farther than a few hours away.

Jazz, who had been reading over various pamphlets she'd accumulated over the course of the day, looked up from her seat on her bed. "I thought we'd sorted this out," she said softly. "Phantom overshadowed us."

"And exactly how much time do you spend in his company, Jasmine?" Maddie asked, sitting down at the edge of her own bed, not two feet from her daughter. "You called him by his first name. You cannot expect me to believe that you only know him in passing."

"I've spent enough time with Phantom and Danny," Jazz admitted after a moment, "to know that they were connected. But like I said, I found out by accident, and I thought it was Danny's secret to tell, not mine. I didn't even tell him that I knew at first."

The story was the same, Maddie noted. And Jazz was careful not to tell her more than necessary.

Danny hadn't been as careful, since he'd really thought….

"And did you talk to Phantom?" Maddie pressed. "Work with him?"

Jazz raised an eyebrow at her mother. "Do you really think I could convince him to let me psychoanalyze him, Mom? I'm the child of two ghost hunters. Phantom doesn't have a death wish."

"He's already dead," Maddie said automatically. But even as the words left her mouth, she wasn't sure if they were entirely true. They couldn't be, not if….

"I know, I know," Jazz said, dropping the pamphlets onto the bed beside her and twisting around to face Maddie. "I just…. Mom, you don't need to worry, okay? Phantom isn't going to hurt me. He isn't going to hurt any of us."

It was the same assurances Phantom had given her. He wouldn't hurt anyone who was human, he'd said. He was different from other ghosts, he'd said. Whatever she was thinking didn't apply to him.

"_I'm not a ghost, exactly. Just a half ghost."_

"We don't know that, Jazz."

"I do," Jazz said.

"Sweetie, you're in no position—"

"I know him better than you do," Jazz said quietly.

Maddie had opened her mouth to respond but she slowly shut it. She couldn't argue with that. She'd learned more about Phantom last weekend than she had in the past year. Passive observation, often from a distance, was nothing like seeing things up close for herself, nothing like hearing the lies from the horse's mouth.

Only, if they weren't lies….

The button hadn't been.

She hadn't known about it. Had it even been in the blueprints? She doubted it, but Jack had been the one to file them away, not her, so if he'd made the last minute adjustment to the actual design on paper and not just in his head, she wouldn't necessarily have seen it. Was Jack the only one to know about it?

Jack…and Danny?

And Phantom.

A ghost.

A ghost that was more than just a ghost.

A ghost that had seen, or at least knew about, the inner workings of the Fenton Ghost Portal—something that was impossible once the machinery was active, since it became an instantaneous doorway to the Ghost Zone.

The place to which she wasn't so sure, anymore, Phantom belonged.

"Mom, I thought this was over. I thought you'd let it go."

"You weren't overshadowed," Maddie said quietly, watching Jazz's face carefully to note her reaction.

Surprise, quickly replaced by incredulity. But not quickly enough. "Of course I was overshadowed, Mom. I saw Phantom once you got him out of me using the Fenton Ghost Catcher."

"You weren't overshadowed the entire time," Maddie explained softly.

Jazz snorted. "I wasn't overshadowed when I talked to you in the Assault Vehicle, no. But come on, Mom. Do we have to do this now? The college I choose can influence the course of the rest of my life. This isn't an easy decision."

Evasion, Maddie realized. Diversion. And if she hadn't been watching for it, she would have fallen for it. She would have smiled ruefully and apologized, and Jazz would undoubtedly have kept chatting away about the decision she had to make and everything that she was considering in it, weighing the pros and cons and drawing up lists and….

She'd been redirected a lot over the past year in this manner.

"I know it's not," Maddie said, "but that won't make this situation with Phantom go away, honey. We can't keep avoiding it."

Jazz, who had opened her mouth, closed it. She bit her lip, like she always did when she was worried or unsure about something. And then she said, "Just forget it, Mom."

_Don't get involved._ Maddie knew that was what her daughter was thinking. "You know I won't, sweetheart."

Jazz narrowed her eyes. "Why are you talking to me about this? Why not Danny? He's more involved with Phantom than I am, and I'm not the one you're worried about."

"You still know what's going on," Maddie said simply.

Jazz didn't deny it, though Maddie wished she would. "I pay attention," she returned. There was a hint of accusation in her voice that Maddie knew all too well. It was the same one that turned up whenever Jazz claimed they were scarring Danny, ruining his chances in life by embarrassing him socially whenever they turned up at Casper High in pursuit of a ghost or shoving their latest inventions in his face, blathering on about their discoveries.

"Besides," Jazz added, "you broke Phantom's connection with Danny, right? Decontaminated him when you put him through the Ghost Catcher? It's all sorted out anyway; things are back to normal."

"That's the trouble. Nothing's changed, Jazz," Maddie said. "It's been a week, and it's still the same. Danny's no better off. He's still losing sleep, and his schoolwork is still suffering. Mr. Lancer called again yesterday."

"Things can take a while to change," Jazz pointed out, sounding like the adult she always claimed to be—like the adult she nearly was, really. "You can't expect this to sort itself out overnight when it took a lot longer than that to get this far."

It was a reasonable explanation, and it was certainly one Maddie wanted to grasp at. She wanted to believe it. But she couldn't. The answer had been staring her in the face, been offered up to her, and she'd ignored it—scorned it, even—for too long.

"It's more than that."

Jazz shrugged. "If you say so." She picked up her pamphlets again and pretended to read.

But she didn't read. Maddie knew that. Her eyes didn't flit across the page, back and forth, back and forth. There were no mouthed words or phrases, no twitches of a smile or a frown to indicate what she thought. Jazz was waiting.

Watching.

Seeing what she would do. Gauging her reaction. Trying to judge how much damage there was, how best to mitigate it, how to distract her and put her off on the wrong track again.

She was covering for Danny, even after he'd admitted….

"It's true, isn't it?"

Silence met that question—statement, really, at this point—but Maddie hadn't expected anything less.

It was a few long seconds before Jazz spoke. "What's true?"

"About Danny."

"That he was connected with Phantom? You already knew that, Mom."

"That it's more than just a connection," Maddie said softly. "That's what you said back in the Assault Vehicle." Back when Jazz wasn't pretending she was overshadowed. Back when she couldn't deny the words she'd said, not when Maddie remembered them so clearly.

Jazz looked over at her again. "You broke that connection, Mom, when you put Danny through the Fenton Ghost Catcher. I already said that, and you saw it for yourself."

"But Danny—"

"Mom," Jazz interrupted, "stop it, okay? It's over."

"No, it's not. And you know that, don't you?"

Jazz rolled her eyes. "It's not over because you won't drop it. Just forget it, Mom. You might think I'm lying to you, but I'm not. You're just hearing what you want to hear. So just put it aside, all right? This has gone on for long enough, and I want to focus on what I'm doing this weekend, not go over what happened last weekend. Please?"

Maddie wanted to argue. This was too important. It had been put off for long enough. But Jazz was right; she hadn't been lying, except by omission, really. And she did have other things to focus on this weekend: her future. It was selfish of Maddie to try to distract her from that.

But she couldn't help but wonder if that wasn't all this was: a distraction.

Why else would Jazz have chosen this week, this weekend, to frantically send out emails to arrange for a personal tour at nearby universities? It wasn't a lighter load in school, as far as Maddie knew; this week was as busy as the rest of them for Jazz.

Perhaps she hadn't been as good an actor as she'd thought. Perhaps Jazz had seen through her, had noticed the worry, the frowns, the confusion, and had hastily arranged this to distract her from it. Mother-daughter bonding time. Getting her out of Amity Park, focussed on things besides ghost hunting and the ghost boy…. What if that was all that this was?

And even if Jazz had intended to check out local universities and had merely picked the timing as a distraction, what if it was simply because she really didn't want to leave Danny on his own?

Jazz played the role of overprotective big sister well, Maddie knew. She just hadn't ever quite realized how necessary it was.

Maddie sighed. "Of course, honey. I'm sorry." It was the answer Jazz wanted, and Maddie couldn't bring herself not to give it to her. Not now.

A quirk of the lips, and a small smile graced Jazz's face. "It's okay, Mom. It was confusing for me, too, at first. But at least it's over, right?"

That was the first outright lie Jazz had told her, and Maddie almost wished she hadn't been able to recognize it. Instead, she smiled and agreed, just as Jazz expected. "Right."

But inside, her heart sank.

* * *

"Thanks for supper, Mrs. Foley," Danny said. "It was delicious."

She smiled at him. "I'm glad you enjoyed it, Danny. It's always nice to know someone appreciates my cooking."

"I appreciate it!" Tucker protested, matching his father word for word.

Mrs. Foley smirked. "It's sometimes nice to get that appreciation in something other than a cleaned plate and no leftovers, you know."

"Fine, Mom. Thanks for supper. May Danny and I be excused?"

A laugh. "You should come over for supper more often, Danny. Tucker's manners always seem to improve."

"Hey!"

"Go on, you two. But, Danny, your father phoned earlier, and he's coming by to pick you up at seven thirty, all right?"

"What?" Danny stared at Tucker's mom, speechless.

"Did you forget? He said you might've. I'll give you a shout at twenty-five after, then, shall I? So you have time to wrap up whatever you're doing?"

Tucker blinked and looked sideways at Danny, who was doing his best impression of a fish and gaping, open-mouthed, at Mrs. Foley. "Sure, Mom. That's great." He grabbed Danny and dragged him down the hall to his room. "You're busted, man. Your dad must've really wanted you to stick around."

Danny closed his eyes and groaned, sitting down on the edge of Tucker's bed. He knew what he had to look forward to: hours of listening to his dad blathering on about ghosts, cleaning up green gunk in the lab, and, more likely than not, a bit more suffocation courtesy of the Fenton Spectre Binder.

"I am so dead," Danny muttered, his head buried in his hands.

"Maybe, if he suggests going ghost hunting, you can agree and then suggest to split up?" Tucker offered.

Danny looked up at Tucker. "Not a chance. He wouldn't pass up the chance to show me how to hunt ghosts."

"Well, maybe you can—"

"Hold on," Danny said as his cell phone started to ring. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. "It's Jazz," he said before flipping it open. "Hello?"

"_Danny? Are you alone right now?"_

"Um, I'm with Tucker. Why?"

"_I think Mom knows."_

"_What_?"

"_I think she knows. She was asking questions. She's... Danny, I tried to throw her off, but I think she's figured it out."_

A pit settled in Danny's stomach. She knew. His mother knew. Oh, God, his mother _knew_. No more wrong assumptions now. No more excuses. No more putting off the inevitable. Just…wondering what was going to happen. And hoping.

Why couldn't this be over? Why couldn't she have just dropped it? Why couldn't she have either believed him then, when he'd finally told her, or been happy to think that he'd been overshadowed? Why did she have to keep this up?

Why did he have to face her twice, telling her the truth and not knowing how she'd take it?

"_Danny?"_

"Jazz," Danny whispered, "are you sure?"

"_More sure than I want to be."_

"Bad news, Danny?" Tucker asked. He always was one for stating the obvious.

"_Mom's going to want to talk to you when we get back," _Jazz was saying. _"I think you'll just have to show her, Danny. I don't think we can fool her any longer."_

Danny's mouth worked for a moment before he managed to say anything. "How's she taking it?"

Silence on Jazz's end this time, then, _"She's still taking it in, I think. She hasn't said anything. Danny, we need to go about this carefully. It's a big shock for her."_

"I know." This was not how he'd wanted his parents to find out. He'd wanted to tell both of them, together, at home but away from weapons. Later. When he was absolutely, positively sure they'd accept him and not think this was a trick or something. Well, as sure as he ever could be. But not….

Not the way he'd told his mom.

Not after what had happened, when he'd played off her assumption that he was overshadowed and quickly done the same to Jazz to make her think none of this was real.

"But how can she know?" Danny asked. "Doesn't she, well, think we were overshadowed?"

"_I don't know,"_ Jazz said. _"She must have found something. We weren't careful enough."_

"I shouldn't've tried to convince her," Danny said glumly. "I just…. I didn't know what to do. She wouldn't have stopped otherwise. You said that yourself."

"_We'll figure this out, Danny,"_ Jazz assured him. _"Look, I've got to get back; I told Mom I was just grabbing something from the vending machine. Just be careful, okay, little brother? We'll talk once Mom and I get home."_

"Okay, but, uh, Jazz? What should I—"

"_Mom's coming! I've got to go. Bye, Danny."_

"No, wait! Jazz, what should I do about Dad? Jazz?" But the line was dead. "Crud."

Tucker didn't say anything for a moment. "Your mom figured it out, didn't she?"

Danny just nodded.

"Do you want me to call Sam, then? I mean, I don't know if it'll help, since you could probably hear her yelling over the phone from across the room…."

Danny sighed. "Maybe tell her after Dad picks me up. That way, if she does feel she has to yell at me, I'll have an excuse to get away from Dad." It wasn't that Sam would be angry at him, exactly. She wouldn't be. She might be angry with his stupidity, since he'd walked into this one and it was his own fault, since things would've been different if he'd handled things differently to start with, but she was worried for him. Afraid of what might happen. Like Tucker was. It was all concern.

Knowing that didn't help matters much, though.

"Or from her if your dad says that you've spent enough time with us today?"

Danny winced. "That obvious?"

"Dude, I don't know why it bothers you so much. I mean, you'll have to get used to it once you guys get married."

"_Tucker_!"

Tucker grinned, and Danny felt the heat radiating off his cheeks. He and Sam weren't…. They weren't even dating, let alone…. She was just his friend, right? A really, really good best friend that he'd had for years and…. Okay, so he sort of really _did_ li—

"Danny! Your father's here!"

"Huh?" Danny glanced wildly around for a clock. What had happened to Mrs. Foley's five minute warning?

"Man, he's early," Tucker said, glancing at his PDA. "It's only seven."

"C'mon, Danny-boy!" came the unmistakable booming voice of Jack Fenton. "We've got things to do!"

Danny glanced at Tucker. "Wish me luck?"

"If I wear a tie to your funeral, can I have your computer?" Tucker said instead, smirking.

Danny groaned.

* * *

"Don't look so glum, son," Jack said as they were driving back to FentonWorks. "This'll be fun."

"Car!" Danny shouted, clutching the edges of the seat.

"What?" Jack glanced back at the road just in time to swerve out of the oncoming traffic. Once he was safely back in the right lane, he looked back over at Danny. "I can show you how to use some of our new inventions," Jack suggested, "or—"

"Red light!"

Jack slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt just in time. "Or we can just go and find some ghosts for target practice. You need more field experience, Danny. Your mother and I were really worried about you last weekend."

To be honest, Jack wasn't entirely sure what had happened last weekend. He knew Maddie had talked to Danny, but she'd never said what he'd said, and Danny certainly hadn't volunteered any information. Jack hadn't asked, either. He'd figured if it was important, Maddie would tell him. It wasn't that he wasn't curious; he just didn't want to give Danny any more reasons to draw away from them.

Jazz had told him, not two weeks ago, that if he kept trying to force his lifestyle on them, smothering them instead of giving them space, they wouldn't have room to grow and develop and reach their true potential. It would be especially scarring to Danny, she'd said, because he was younger. Jack hadn't understood everything she'd said, admittedly, but he'd gotten the gist of it. So he'd tried to back off a bit. He hadn't asked.

Now he was wondering if he should have anyway.

"I'm fine, Dad," Danny said. He still offered no explanation for his absence, no reason for the frantic night his family had spent searching for him, only to have him turn up unharmed the next morning.

Jack was extremely glad that Danny was all right, but he couldn't help but remember everything that had crossed his mind when he'd been looking for Danny that night. How he'd been convinced, by morning, that a ghost had kidnapped him. How he'd promised himself that he wouldn't let this happen again. He didn't want to give any ghost an opportunity to hurt his family.

"Green light," Danny added.

Jack turned away from his son again and continued home. It didn't take them long—two minutes, tops—and he made it without hitting anything. But no matter how many conversation openings he gave Danny, Danny never offered anything.

Maddie was right. Danny was drifting apart from their family. He used to show so much enthusiasm as a little kid, always asking about their research and whether or not they'd found real ghosts yet. It seemed that once they finally had, Danny had lost most of his interest in ghost hunting.

Was it really just because he'd started high school? Things couldn't be too much different these days, could it, than they had been when he'd been in school? He knew his kids would argue that they were, but were they really? They shouldn't be. Not that much. He should still be able to understand what his kids were going through.

But Danny, especially, didn't even give them the chance.

"I'll be in my room, okay, Dad?" Danny said once they were inside.

"But, Danny-boy, we can invent stuff together, just like we used to!"

"I don't want to."

"Danny—"

"I've had a long day, that's all."

Jack frowned. "We could play," he finally said. "Like we used to. I made a Jazz action figure; I could make one of you, too!"

Danny smacked his forehead. "No, Dad," he mumbled before removing his hand. "I'm just going to go to bed."

"Hey," Jack said, reaching out to catch Danny's arm as he turned away. "I know I'm not the best dad in the world, Danny, but can't we even just talk?"

Danny raised an eyebrow. "About what?"

"Whatever's troubling you."

"Nothing's troubling me, Dad. I'm fine."

Jack stared at Danny for a moment, expecting him to pull away and climb up the stairs to his room. Maddie was better at this sort of thing than he was. But she was right: they needed to get to know their kids better. Danny wasn't the same kid he'd been five years ago. He wasn't even the same as he'd been two years ago. Back then, he'd still ask questions about their work. He'd offer to help them clean up just so he could get closer to all their science equipment. He'd beg for a ride in the Emergency Ops Centre, laughing if Jack relented when Maddie did not. He'd tell his friends about what his parents did with pride, not cringe in his seat and try to hide whenever they turned up and he was with his peers.

"I know you're not fine, son," Jack finally said. "It might be scary, Danny, but we should really go down to the lab to run some tests. Mom was trying to figure it out last week, and I don't know what distracted her, but she's right. It's dangerous to blindly ignore how many of our weapons target you as a ghost. I don't want something like what happened earlier today to happen again."

Danny looked at him warily. "What kind of tests?"

"It won't take too long," Jack promised, encouraged by the fact that Danny hadn't flatly refused. "And afterwards, we can have some fudge!"

That got a chuckle from Danny. "Would you even leave me any?"

"Of course I would, son! Besides, Mom just bought more yesterday."

"And you haven't finished it all yet," Danny deduced. "Okay, fine, Dad. But not for too long, okay? I really am tired. And we can do some more of this stuff tomorrow."

Jack grinned. "You won't feel a thing, Danny-boy! I promise!"

"I doubt that," Danny muttered.

"Now," Jack said, leading his son down to the lab, "Mom and I think it's because you've picked up too much ectoplasm because you never did enough to protect yourself while you're in the lab, so we've got you a new HAZMAT suit…." He trailed off and looked back at Danny. "What did you ever do with yours, anyway? It just disappeared one day."

"Uh, I, uh, outgrew it, and, um, Jazz told me I should give it away since it didn't fit?"

Jack laughed. "And you didn't tell us? We could've gotten you a new one within a week, son! Day glow orange, just like mine!"

"Uh…. Black and white was just fine, Dad."

Jack, however, didn't pay that much attention to Danny. He rummaged in their storage closet and pulled out an orange jumpsuit just like his, only smaller. It wasn't the one he'd intended for Jazz, which was just as well, since she fit into Maddie's; this one was a bit shorter and made for Danny's current height.

Danny gave it a sceptical look. "I don't think that's going to fit me, Dad."

Jack gave the jumpsuit a more critical look. "Still too big, huh?" he said, dejectedly. He'd really thought it wasn't, but now, looking at it and looking at Danny, he had to admit that it was.

"I probably don't need it anyway," Danny said hastily. "Right? I mean, you're just going to calibrate your weapons so they recognize me as safe rather than as a threat, right?"

Jack blinked at him. "What?"

Danny shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Well, everything recognizes me as a ghost, right? Because of the contamination or whatever I've picked up? So if I've gotten enough that it acts like an ecto-signature, then why not treat it as one? Figure out what it is and program it into your weapons so that they don't react to me?"

Jack grinned widely as he realized what Danny was saying. "That's brilliant, son! You're a genius, just like your old man!" He swept Danny into a bear hug.

"Uh, Dad? I can't breathe."

Jack was still grinning when he released his son. "It's a great idea," he said again. And it shouldn't be too much trouble, either. He had most of the research he needed for that sort of thing already completed. He'd figured out how to target an ecto-signature back when he'd invented the Booo-merang. The targeted missile weaponry just built on that concept. It shouldn't be too hard to feed the frequency of Danny's 'ecto-signature' into the machine—and the rest of his machines—and neutralize it.

He even had the pseudo ecto-signature, thanks to the Booo-merang. He wouldn't even _have_ to run all the tests Danny was so afraid of if he did it that way, rather than trying to determine the underlying cause of the problem in each and every invention or to neutralize whatever contamination Danny already carried.

Well, they should probably still work on that, but as far as they knew, low levels of ectoplasm exposure didn't have any harmful effects on humans. But this way…. This way was simpler. Danny was a genius after all, for all that he dodged his homework and tried to skip out on his chores.

"C'mon, Dan," Jack said. "Let's get to work and fix this problem once and for all!" With a new bounce in his step, because Danny was finally willingly spending time with him, Jack started over to the cleanest lab table.

* * *

A/N: There, I was very good. I didn't end it on a cliffhanger. Don't expect the same for the next chapter. Thanks to everyone who's been taking the time to read and review!


	4. Chapter 4

It was Jazz's turn to drive after lunch. Maddie appreciated just taking the time to think. One more college tour and then back home. One more tour, and she would get a chance to talk to Danny. To face her son. After…everything.

She couldn't avoid it any longer, really. She almost wished she could, but she couldn't. She felt _horrible_. The things she'd said, the things she'd _done_, the things she'd….

Actions spoke louder than words. She'd as good as tried to murder her son, her sweet baby boy. All because of her blindness. Her ignorance. Her refusal to contemplate what she'd thought an impossible option.

Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom were one and the same. He'd told her, but she hadn't believed him. She'd stood by what she'd thought she'd known: that all ghosts lie. That they tricked people into thinking they were harmless before taking advantage of them. That Phantom had managed to convince Danny of something so…so….

But Phantom, as he'd insisted, wasn't like the other ghosts. He was different. He wasn't a proper ghost at all. He was just…a half ghost.

As impossible as it was, as much as her mind opposed the mere thought of acceptance, she couldn't ignore her heart—or her gut—any longer.

"_It was just an accident."_

How could she have been so blind? How could she not have seen it, even when it was right in front of her? How long had she ignored what was right under her nose and been blind to the plight of her only son?

"_Since I got the Fenton Portal working."_

Too long. It had gone on for far too long. And she didn't even know how to address it. How to stop it. How to apologize.

Or how to crush that tiny voice in the back of her head that reminded her exactly how great an opportunity this was. A brilliant breakthrough, an amazing discovery.

It was almost a shame she had no intentions of telling anyone.

Only…Jack. She couldn't not tell Jack. But she couldn't tell him, either. It wasn't her place. Jazz had been right about that. It was Danny's secret to tell, not theirs. But they'd kept enough secrets in their family. This one could have torn it apart. If they had ever managed to catch Phantom off guard, to do even a tenth of the things they'd wanted to do….

Oh, God….

"_I'm sorry, Mom."_

How often had they cursed Danny Phantom for evading their grasp? How many times had they sworn to rip him apart molecule by molecule once they caught him? How many times had they cursed his existence, thinking him nothing more than scum, a filthy piece of ectoplasm? How many times had they cheerfully assured Danny and Jazz that all ghosts were emotionless, that they were all evil, that it didn't matter how much pain their inventions might cause, that they didn't even care about that?

How many times had they ignored their children whenever Danny or Jazz had tried to suggest otherwise?

Maddie closed her eyes and tried to figure out what she knew. Danny had, out of what he probably thought was necessity, kept a huge secret from them; an entire part of his life, in fact. Jazz had, by her own words, found out on her own, and that had, no doubt, spurred her own fierce protectiveness of Phantom. And if Danny's close association with Sam and Tucker was anything to go by, they knew, too. Probably from the very beginning. And now she did, because she'd forced the answer out of him, the reason for his actions.

"_I can't do this, Mom. I just…. I can't."_

She hadn't listened when she'd been asked to stop. She'd pushed him. She'd forced his secret from him. In her own bout of protectiveness, of concern for her youngest child, she'd stripped away all the excuses and the lies he'd set up to protect himself. She'd as good as handed him an ultimatum: fess up or have a harder time hiding, because she'd make his life miserable until she knew the truth.

"_It's you. You're hunting me like a ghost."_

He would know. She'd hunted him before, and she certainly hadn't regretted it at the time.

So many things had crossed her mind in this past week, ever since she'd found that accursed, lie-defying 'on' button on the inside of the portal, right where Danny—who she'd thought had been overshadowed by Phantom—had said it would be. Though she hadn't admitted it to herself right away, she'd known right then that this wasn't overshadowing.

It was what followed, however—the more objective, painstaking analysis of Phantom's actions—that convinced her that what she'd once thought was ludicrous and impossible was merely improbable.

In her earlier fervour that defined her search for answers, she hadn't wanted to accept what she was starting to believe without further proof. It had been absurdly more comforting to believe that Phantom was overtaking Danny, that Phantom was still the epitome of evil like the rest of the ghosts and his only good points were traits he'd siphoned off from his connection with Danny, that the two were still separate entities that merely coexisted more closely than they had any right to. All of those could still be fixed, she'd thought. It might be difficult, but as long as Danny and Phantom were separate, she could make sure there was always a distance kept between them.

But on Monday, after a day and a half of feverish study, her instinct was already arguing with her logic. She'd rummaged around Jazz's room, found the scrapbook, and read it, cover to cover. Every newspaper clipping of Phantom, every magazine article, every personal note. She'd studied snapshots. Records of his growth. The lists Jazz had made, a timeline of Phantom's heroic acts and his blacker moments, though those had scribbled explanations beneath them. In Danny's handwriting, she remembered. Framed. Hypnotized. Misjudgements or overreactions or mistakes, blown out of proportion before a chance to correct them had arisen.

She'd compared it to her own notes about Phantom. The abnormally quick growth for a ghost, which she'd always attributed to him being younger than the others whose powers had already been established. But that explanation had never quite sat well with her, for if Phantom were a young ghost, his powers should not be coming so quickly, and if they did, he should be less skilled in using them. The fact that he tried to protect Amity Park had been curious, too, as was the fact that he did his best to protect all of the people in it.

Nothing quite made sense when she and Jack had tried to pinpoint Phantom's obsession. Whenever they thought they had it figured out, Phantom would do something that would surprise them. He had never followed any of the rules of ghosts like she'd expected. He'd always been an anomaly. He'd always been different, yet she'd stubbornly grouped him with the rest of the ghosts.

She'd never realized that her confusion stemmed simply the fact that she was seeing human qualities shining through in a ghost.

It wasn't just an amalgamation of human and ghost, she now knew. It was a fusion. Something that, once created, should not be separated.

"_Danny and Phantom are more than just connected, Mom. You can't split them apart, so don't try."_

That's all she'd done, though: split them apart. She'd thought she was decontaminating Danny, expelling all the excess ectoplasm that had accumulated in his system, dispelling all residual traces of Phantom's ecto-signature. She hadn't expected to break him into two pieces, to end up with two halves of the same whole.

Of course, between what Jazz had said and Danny had told her, she suspected it wasn't the first time it had happened, which was perhaps why it hadn't taken Danny very long to get back to normal.

Normal.

Normal had never been part of the Fenton family, and she'd always been happy to defy it. That was part of the reason she was drawn to Jack, and a large part of the reason she studied the paranormal. She'd never thought normal existed, personally. She'd always thought it was nothing more than an illusion, a fabrication.

She hadn't realized she'd been living her own illusion of normalcy until it had shattered.

_My son is Danny Phantom._

She should have confronted him earlier this week, but she hadn't. She'd kept putting it off. Like Danny probably had, if he'd ever contemplated telling them. He had probably thought, until she'd pushed him to it, that it was too late to tell them. That he'd kept the secret too long. That he'd have to admit to more than just the fact that he was, somehow, impossibly, part ghost.

She couldn't really blame him, given some of the things they'd said.

Maddie sighed and opened her eyes. She'd have to talk to Danny. She knew that. She just didn't want to. She didn't know what to say. What could she say? For all she knew, he still thought she didn't suspect anything. Given her reaction to the truth, that wouldn't be surprising, either.

There was a sign coming up, and Maddie strained to catch a glimpse of it. She never had paid attention to where they were going next, and she wasn't sure how far it was.

_AMITY PARK_, the sign read. _48_.

They were less than an hour away.

"Jazz?" Maddie said, rousing herself from her stupor. "Where are we going?"

"Home," Jazz answered, her gaze not wavering from the road.

Home? Already? That didn't make sense. "What about the last tour?"

"I cancelled it," Jazz explained. "This morning. After breakfast. I said I wasn't feeling well, and I apologized and rescheduled for next weekend. I would have cancelled the one this morning, too, if I hadn't thought it was too short of notice."

"You're sick?" Did she miss everything that happened to her children?

"I'm fine," Jazz said.

"Then why—?"

"You need to talk to Danny."

"Jazz—"

"Don't argue, Mom. You need to talk to him."

Jazz was right; she _did_ pay attention. "I don't know what I should say," Maddie admitted.

"Tell him the truth," Jazz said matter-of-factly. "Tell him how you feel."

Her daughter, the budding psychologist. "It's not that simple, honey."

"It is that simple," Jazz countered. "It's just not necessarily easy to do."

"Jazz, you don't—"

"Danny will hear you out, Mom, whether you think he will or not. Just don't bring any weapons."

It was advice Jazz had given her before. This time, Maddie wouldn't dream of disregarding it. "How did you know?" Maddie asked after a moment.

"How did I know what?"

"That I…figured it out."

Jazz glanced over at her before turning back to face the road. "You figured it out a while ago, Mom," she said quietly. "After Danny told you, I knew it wouldn't take much. But I wasn't sure that you'd accepted it until you started asking me questions."

"But you didn't tell me. You kept pretending."

"I needed to be sure," Jazz replied. "Danny's been guarding his secret for a long time. I wasn't going to tell you unless I had to."

"Unless we caught him?"

Jazz didn't answer.

"Jazz," Maddie said, "last week, if I'd…. I nearly…. What if I had taken Phantom down to the lab once I had him, before I even knew Danny was missing, that he wasn't going to turn up after his English class was over? What if your father and I had…. We could've…."

"You didn't."

"But I would've."

"But you didn't," Jazz repeated. "Did you ever ask yourself why? You've been hunting the ghost boy since he turned up. Danny Phantom was the first ghost we saw. I mean, I wasn't much better than you back then. I was still refusing to see what I didn't believe in. I didn't even notice any of the strange going-ons surrounding the Lunch Lady's appearance because I was too wrapped up in my own thing. I didn't want to see it either, Mom, because I didn't want to believe. And then I opened my eyes. Just like you have now." She paused. "But something stopped you from dissecting Phantom the moment you caught him, Mom. What was it?"

"I thought he was connected to Danny," Maddie said after a moment. "I didn't want to risk it."

"That wouldn't stop you from studying him, from telling Dad you caught Danny Phantom. And it wasn't like you didn't later threaten to try to sever the connection between Phantom and Danny anyway. So what stopped you from taking that thermos down to the lab and opening it and studying the ghost that had eluded you for months?"

"I don't know," Maddie said. "I just…. I don't know." Jazz gave her another sidelong look before turning her attention back to the road, and Maddie knew why. Jazz didn't believe her.

Jazz was right, though. Something had stopped her. Something had made her keep Phantom's capture a secret, stopped her from telling Jack, to whom she normally told everything, and stopped her from doing what she'd wanted to do for months on end: study the ghost boy. Inviso-Bill. Danny Phantom. The ghost that didn't quite fit the mould, that ignored the usual criteria of a ghost, that belied her expectations.

Maddie knew what Jazz was getting at. Her first thought was to deny it, but she wasn't sure. She didn't know.

But whatever it was, it had stopped her from making the worst mistake of her life.

* * *

Danny had meant to get to bed early. He really had. But life had conspired against him, and it hadn't happened. Danny had had to run out on his dad once, when his ghost sense had gone off, but it had only been the Box Ghost and he hadn't been gone long. Actually, he wasn't even sure his dad had noticed.

Given that he'd fought ghosts in front of his dad before, while he was busy giving a lecture about ghosts and his inventions, that wasn't too surprising. Jack Fenton wasn't the most attentive person in the world.

That was probably why Danny had been so surprised his dad had practically cornered him and given him a speech he would've expected from his mother. Really, from Jack Fenton, that _was _surprising, given that it wasn't about ghosts.

But by midnight, Jack had finally caught Danny failing to stifle a yawn, and he'd admitted that it was perhaps best if they called it a night. Danny had dutifully said good night before carrying on with his usual bedtime routine, but he hadn't been in bed for five minutes before his ghost sense had gone off again. The culprit this time had been Technus, after some fancy new electronics, which had turned out to be older electronics to Danny.

Danny had tuned out Technus's latest plan after he'd heard something about 'world domination' and 'hip, new compact disc players, called _CD_ players', figuring Technus's plan had been doomed before he'd even started.

It had still taken him a while to stuff Technus in the thermos, though. He was getting pretty good at using electronic equipment as a shield, and Danny always had better luck fighting him when he had Sam and Tucker as backup. Especially Tucker, when it came to Technus. But Technus, alone and easy to catch off guard while shouting out his plans, wasn't even close to the hardest ghost Danny had ever fought, and he could handle him without help.

Normally, at least, and this had counted as normally. Thankfully.

But it was still late enough, by the time Danny flew back to FentonWorks and changed back into Danny Fenton and collapsed into bed, that he didn't want to get up before ten the next day. Before noon, if he had any real choice.

Jack Fenton had had other plans.

At least he'd waited until nine before dragging Danny down to the lab.

"I think I've got it, Danny-boy!" Jack said excitedly. "I didn't want to reprogram the Booo-merang in case this doesn't work, but I isolated the ecto-signature reading that it picks up from you and fed it into the other machines…."

Danny yawned and desperately hoped this would work, tuning out his dad as he kept rattling on. He knew he should listen, but he knew the gist of what Jack was going to say anyway. Danny wasn't entirely sure when he'd scrapped the idea of building a grenade launcher (though he couldn't help but be thankful for that particular blessing) and built that phase-proof Fenton Spectre Binder instead, but he knew his father was smart, even if he didn't always show it. He also knew that, between the Booo-merang or Skulker's or Valerie's missiles that could track and target him, machines that reacted to specific ecto-signatures were possible.

He wasn't sure who had suggested it first, Tucker or Jazz or even Sam, but he knew his friends intended to come up with something that would neutralize the effects of his parents' weapons on him. Modify things so that they wouldn't target him or react to his ecto-signature. They'd intended to leave the Booo-merang as it was since, annoying though it may be, it had come in useful more than once. They also wouldn't be able to do anything about the Ghost Gabber. But dangerous things, like the Fenton Spectre Deflector, could be tweaked so they didn't react to him.

That was still an ongoing project for them. When he'd realized that he couldn't just avoid his dad at home and remembered all this, well, it made things easier for him.

Heck, if he was lucky, his dad might even be able to make it so that the Fenton Crammer didn't short out his powers if he was ever accidentally shrunk again. But the chances of that were minimal, anyway, after what his mother had said when she'd found out that an innocent bystander (though Danny wasn't sure _innocent_ was a word that should ever be used to describe Dash Baxter) had been hit and affected. It was probably the one time Danny had been thankful for Dash's big mouth.

Jack's protests that he would have returned to normal size eventually, after twenty-four or forty-eight hours, depending on a number of factors Danny couldn't remember, had fallen on deaf ears. Maddie had pointed out that Jack hadn't tested that theory and was making an assumption that he should have confirmed before trying to use the weapon. He supposed he should be thankful that Dash had stuck up for Phantom, especially now that he knew he wouldn't be keeping his secret from his parents—or, at least, his mother—for much longer.

"Now, this shouldn't hurt a bit, son," Jack said, and the distant sound of metal mechanics reached Danny's ears.

That was when he realized his father was facing him with the Fenton Peeler. His eyes went wide. "Dad, no!" he hurriedly cried out. "That, uh, never affected me! Why not try the, er, Spectre Binder again? You know, just to be sure? Since we know you can get me out of that if it doesn't work?"

"Well, the Fenton Peeler doesn't harm humans, Danny-boy, so you shouldn't have anything to worry about."

"Yeah, Dad," Danny said, rubbing his neck, "but, you know, if it's not _supposed_ to affect humans, and we don't know what effect it _might_ have on me, and you think you've fixed it so it _doesn't_ have an effect, why don't we just skip it altogether?"

Jack blinked. "If we think…." he repeated, frowning. He trailed off, mouthing a few of the words.

Danny didn't need to read his father's lips to know he'd gotten it backwards. "Let's just ignore the Fenton Peeler and try the Spectre Binder, okay?"

Jack sighed, looking incredibly disappointed, but to Danny's relief, he deactivated the Fenton Peeler and set it aside. He moved to the Spectre Binder, and Danny shut his eyes, anticipating the worst.

He cracked them open again when he heard the hum of machinery. "Hey," he said, grinning himself. "It's working! I'm not targeted!"

"Of course you're not, son!" Jack said, beaming at him. "I told you I could do it."

There weren't many inventions that Jack had successfully managed to transform to ignore his ecto-signature, but Danny wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He could wear a Spectre Deflector. He was now undetectable by the Fenton Finder (well, the modified one, at any rate). His dad had even taken a stab at making a Jack-o'-Nine-Tails that didn't shock him when he was hit, on the off-chance that it normally did.

The Ghost Gabber still picked him up, but Danny was starting to think that that was a lost cause, anyway.

"It doesn't matter too much, anyway, does it? I mean, it's not going to kill me because it thinks I'm a ghost."

"…_anyway, does it? Fear me. I mean, it's not going to kill me because it thinks I'm a ghost. Fear me."_

"Danny," Jack said, overriding the words of the Fenton Ghost Gabber, "that's not the point. I should be able to get it to work."

"Maybe you shouldn't bother, Dad."

"…_bother, Dad. I am a ghost. Fear me."_

Stupid machine.

"I could find the Fenton Xtractor," Jack offered.

Danny made a face. "After what Jazz told me? No thanks, Dad. This is fine, okay?"

"…_told me? Fear me. No thanks, Dad. Fear me. This is fine, okay? I am a ghost. Fear me."_

Danny lunged for the Ghost Gabber and shut it off. He smiled sheepishly when Jack looked at him. "It was getting annoying," he admitted. Not to mention, if it kept it up, and Jack realized that he couldn't fix it, Danny was as good as sunk. No more secrets, no more lies. Ideal in one respect, but an absolute nightmare in another.

The lab was more cluttered than it normally was now. Jack had dug out most of their inventions to see if he could fix them, assuming he needed to. He had no idea that Danny would benefit from things like a modified Ecto-Stoppo-Power-ofier, too. Danny figured he was lucky his dad had gone so far as to try to make a selective Jack-o'-Nine-Tails.

"Well, I've got your signature saved, Danny-boy," Jack said. "I'll input it into any of our targeting inventions. I—whoops!" Jack, who had turned from the computer as he was speaking, stepped on a bit of anti-ghost goo that had fallen onto the floor and went sliding, trying to get his footing.

Danny jumped aside, trying to avoid colliding with his dad, and hit the Fenton Ghost Catcher.

Jack, to Danny's dismay, recovered just quickly enough from his own collision with the Spectre Speeder to look over and ask, "Son, are you okay?" as Danny was pulling his arm back through the 'merge' side.

"Yeah, Dad. Of course I am," Danny said.

But Jack was staring at him. "Danny," he said slowly, staring at Danny's hand (which was now safely through the 'merge' side of the Ghost Catcher), "did you know you'd picked up enough ectoplasm that it managed to take form?"

"What?"

"Stick your hand through the Fenton Ghost Catcher again," Jack said.

Aw, crud. "Uh, Dad? Isn't it more important to clean up the floor or something?"

Jack got to his feet and slowly walked over to Danny. Danny edged away from the Ghost Catcher but otherwise didn't bolt, despite his instincts telling him otherwise. "You have a real ecto-signature," he said, still sounding surprised. "Like a ghost."

"But that's just, uh, contamination, right? Residual stuff screwing with your instruments?"

"Something that weak wouldn't have form," Jack replied.

Crud. "It was probably just a, um, reflection of my body or something like that? You know, a fusion? Not a fusion, but a, uh, you know. Mould thing? Maybe?"

Jack reached a hand into the pocket of his jumpsuit and Danny cringed. This could not be good.

He pulled out a pair of phase-proof handcuffs, just for ghosts. "Let's try these, son," he said, his voice lacking all the enthusiasm and warmth it had held not two minutes earlier.

"But, uh, Dad?" Danny said, trying—and failing—to evade his father. Crud. "You know humans still can't get out of those, right?"

Jack chained Danny to one of the drawers of the cabinet in which he kept his emergency fudge supply. It was, Danny knew, phase proof as well. So none of the ghosts could swipe any of his supply.

This was bad.

It had been going so well, and now…it was not.

Crud.

He should've quit while he was ahead and hightailed it out of the lab after the test with the Spectre Deflector.

* * *

A/N: So, true to my word, a slight cliffhanger this time. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to leave a comment for me.


	5. Chapter 5

Danny tugged experimentally at the handcuffs, but he already knew it was no use. They were too tight to wriggle out of, and he couldn't even turn the cabinet that he was chained to intangible to give himself a bit more freedom. Well, he _could_, except that it would require a lot of explaining and accomplish nothing, since he'd still be chained to the stupid thing, given the nature of the handcuffs. As it was, he couldn't even run if it came down to it.

He should've figured it would come to this, though. It's just…. He hadn't ever thought his dad would poke around at things like this. That was his mom's job. Jack Fenton was the inventor, not the fine tuner.

His mom had probably said something to him. _"Try to spend some quality time with Danny." _Or maybe, _"Do something you'll both enjoy."_ Even,_ "Why not figure out why everything we invent tries to kill our son? I'm sure Danny would appreciate that."_

His parents loved him. He knew that. But at this rate, if they kept trying to protect him, he would wind up dead.

But things were different if Jazz was right. And she probably was. It was Jazz, after all. He could count the times he remembered her being wrong on one hand. So, Maddie knew. But since she hadn't told Jack, and Jazz hadn't warned him about anything, Danny figured she must have accepted it. That she wasn't going to shoot him immediately. She might have even forgiven him for keeping it a secret.

But if his mom knew, then it wouldn't be long before his dad found out, either. Danny wasn't sure of the best approach to that. Jack had a trigger-happy instinct. Even if he didn't mean to do it, Danny wasn't so sure he'd escape getting shot at. But then again, his dad might be more…. Well, _accepting_ wasn't the right word, not when it came to ghosts. _Amiable_ wasn't quite right, either. It was more…. _Open_. That was it, or at least, that was as close as Danny could get without having Jazz's vocabulary.

His parents both knew the general rules of ghost hunting, the lore that was accepted and the lore that was not. They could separate fact from fiction, or at least what they figured was fact from what they figured was fiction, though Danny knew very well that their idea of fact didn't always come close to the truth. But they knew the science behind it, the literature and the studies and everything, and they'd contributed to it.

But if he was going to tell them something that completely ignored everything they knew, his dad would probably believe him first.

Well, since it had taken his mother a week, that probably wasn't that far of a stretch. But his dad didn't rely on logic as much as his mom did. Jack probably wouldn't be able to invent so many crazy things if he did. Thinking something was impossible was less likely to stop Jack Fenton from trying it.

Besides, if Maddie didn't tell Jack what she'd found out, she'd make him do it. She'd said as much last week before she'd realized exactly what the situation was. That's what she'd told him, after all, when he'd asked her not to tell his dad._ "I'll let you tell him yourself, then, all right?"_ That's what she'd told Jazz. _"Your father has to know, too."_ No doubt she'd told herself the same thing, once she'd realized the truth.

He'd rather do it himself anyway. At least, he would if it weren't for the fact that he was currently trapped. Right now? Playing clueless seemed like the safest option.

But if it came to it, he might not have a choice.

Well, not a _pleasant_ choice. Just the sort of choice he'd had when he'd told his mother. If he didn't tell, something he didn't want to happen would. Something that was bad for him. Something worse than just confessing. Getting hunted down by Maddie and unable to hide, for instance, or getting shot at repeatedly by Jack in a situation where he _wouldn't_ miss.

But the time for keeping secrets, Danny suspected, was running short. And this time, there wouldn't be any more quick fixes. No erased memories or aborted timelines. No do-overs or second chances. This revelation would stick.

Danny groaned. He hoped he hadn't blown it already, with the way he'd ended up telling his mother. The fact that he had yet to see the dissection tools unearthed was a good sign.

But the fact that his dad was at the computer screen, his large bulk completely blocking the screen unless Danny stretched far out to one side, wasn't. His dad hardly ever went on the computer. That usually was what his mother did, though he probably used it more than anyone else in the house. To see Jack so diligently bent over the keyboard, staring at the screen….

He couldn't wait until Jazz got home.

* * *

Jack Fenton really didn't want to do this. He didn't want to know. But he had to do something. It wasn't like he could ignore it any longer.

Not that he'd actually realized it until he'd seen Danny with the Fenton Ghost Catcher. Before that, Danny—or whatever ghost was in him—had fooled him. That was a terrible thing to admit to himself, knowing that he, Jack Fenton, had been played for a fool by a filthy, good-for-nothing ghost when he was one of the best ghost hunters in the country. But for all his protectiveness, he'd never expected that, if a ghost was going to pull something like this, it would actually work.

He'd always thought he'd know the moment one of his family was overshadowed.

But he couldn't deny what he'd seen with his own eyes. When Danny had knocked the Ghost Catcher and accidentally shoved one hand through the ring, Jack hadn't seen a haze come off him like he would have expected, had Danny's contamination been more concentrated in that area of his body. No, he'd seen, undeniably, a hand and an arm, nothing more than a ghostly outline but undeniable nonetheless, separate from Danny's own flesh-and-blood limb.

That much ectoplasm wasn't just contamination.

"Uh, Dad?" It was still Danny's voice, the same tremors that Jack would expect from his son, the same note of uncertainty that he heard all too often in his son's voice. Only this time, it was tied to a note of fear. "What are you doing?"

He probably shouldn't answer. It was just a ghost, after all. It was using Danny as a mouthpiece. Danny was probably trying to fight it off—he might even have been the one to ensure the 'accident' with the Fenton Ghost Catcher—but Jack knew how hard it could be to throw off a ghost when it managed to overshadow you. For many people, it was nigh on impossible.

"Just checking something on the computer, son," Jack finally replied.

It wouldn't take long to get a match, providing the ghost was one they had on file. And if it was a ghost that had ever come through Amity Park before (and they'd noticed), they would have it on file. The ecto-signatures he had for any of the ghosts capable of overshadowing wouldn't be as accurate as for those they'd actually captured, since getting an ecto-signature reading off a residual trace meant there was always some degree of breakdown before the ecto-signature was recorded, but they ought to have enough traces in the system to pinpoint partial matches. Likely suspects, if not the culprit.

It had been Maddie's idea, after he'd come up with the Booo-merang. They'd need something, she'd said, to program their weapons with. Keeping a database on file was faster than trying to get a reading in battle, loading and priming the weapon, and then firing. It would make his targeting missiles, once he made them, that much more effective.

"Maybe you should do it after lunch?" Danny suggested. "I mean, I'm hungry. It's got to be getting late, isn't it? Two bites of cereal doesn't count as breakfast, Dad."

"This won't take me very long, Danny-boy."

He'd called Danny that since, well, since Maddie had sung it to lull him to sleep, night after night. She was the Irish one, not him, but he'd, well…. Danny had been special, to him. A different sort of special than Jazz. Maybe because, when Danny got older, he'd always shown a bit more interest in ghost hunting—and ghosts in general—than Jazz. Danny hadn't ever developed the need to see something to believe it, not like Jazz had.

_Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so._

The computer beeped when it found the match. There was only one: Danny Phantom.

Phantom.

He should've guessed.

"Dad?"

"Just a minute, Danny. I need to find something."

No wonder he hadn't wanted to 'test' the Fenton Xtractor. No wonder he'd said it wasn't necessary to try the Fenton Weasel, saying it was essentially the same. No wonder the Ghost Gabber still repeated everything he said. No wonder he'd suggested making their weapons blind to his ecto-signature.

Only….

Only Jack hadn't used Phantom's ecto-signature. He'd taken the reading from the Booo-merang. From the day he'd invented it and brought it up from the lab to show the kids, it had locked on to Danny and Danny alone.

Something wasn't right.

"Dad?" Movement behind him. Danny was straining as far as the handcuffs allowed. Trying to see what he was looking at, no doubt. "Oh, crud."

The game was up, then. The cat was out of the bag. Jack turned to face his son—or rather, the ghost that had overtaken his son—and Danny hastily backed away.

Jack's eye fell on the Ghost Gloves and on the Fenton Weasel, both in the pile of weapons he hadn't tried yet today, and remembered the last time he'd used the two of them. Phantom had helped save his family, then. The Fenton Ghost Portal had been threatening to overload, and that evil Wisconsin Ghost—Vlad Plasmius, Jack remembered—had tried to kill his family and steal his portal.

He hadn't succeeded, Jack had to admit, because Danny Phantom had helped him out of a tight spot in exchange for his own freedom. And then Jack had been able to show the Wisconsin Ghost exactly what he thought of people who threatened his family.

But one good deed couldn't make up for all the bad things Phantom had done or how much damage he'd caused this town.

"Uh, Dad, there's, um, something I should probably tell you," Danny said. "Could you just, um, listen for a minute? Before trying to kill me?"

Phantom was trapped in Danny as long as Jack kept the cuffs on him. But now that Phantom knew he knew that Danny was being overshadowed, Jack couldn't imagine why he'd keep up the pretence of calling him 'Dad'.

But, as far as Jack knew, Phantom hadn't hurt Danny. So, he'd listen. For the moment.

"There isn't anything you can tell me, ghost, that'll make me go easy on you," Jack said simply.

Danny cringed. "Noted. But, uh, Dad? You know how Mom's been acting kind of, well, withdrawn this week? Preoccupied? Sort of?"

Jack's eyes narrowed. "Maddie's been doing research," he said.

"That's my fault," Danny said. "It's because I told her. I mean, I thought she'd given it up, but Jazz phoned me yesterday, and apparently she hadn't."

Jack sighed. "I know you're not Danny, Phantom. Stop pretending you are."

"I'm not pretending, Dad. I'm your son."

"You're _in_ my son."

Danny opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at the floor. After a beat, he continued, saying, "What did Mom tell you about last weekend?"

"That's none of your business, Phantom."

Danny looked back up. "Dad, it's still me. I'm Danny Phantom, all right? He's not overshadowing me. He _is_ me. I am him. Whatever. We're the same, because it's just me. I'm half ghost."

Jack stared at him.

"Before you say it's not, it _is_ possible. You know when you built the Fenton Portal? You put the 'on' button inside. And you didn't turn it on before you plugged it in."

"That's why it didn't work." Jack murmured. He didn't know why he was listening. It was nonsense. It was…impossible. Just because Phantom somehow knew about the 'on' button inside the Ghost Portal, it didn't mean everything else he was saying was true.

Danny nodded eagerly. "Yeah. My problem was that I didn't unplug it before I turned it on. That's what happened when I had my accident, Dad. I got shocked, and, well, Jazz thinks it mutated my DNA or something. But I'm half ghost."

Jazz? Why did Phantom have to bring her into this conversation? It was bad enough he claimed that he'd fed this story to Maddie.

And that Maddie had heard enough of a ring of truth in the tale that she'd actually researched it.

He got the feeling that he didn't know the whole story.

"Why are you telling me this?" Jack demanded.

Danny rubbed the back of his neck, a sign that Jack had seen often from his son. He was still nervous, unsure of himself. "Because I have to," he said. "I've kept it a secret for too long. I should have told you in the beginning when I'd meant to." He paused. "And because, well, Jazz said Mom has probably figured it out. I mean, I told her last weekend. I had to. She wasn't going to stop going after me. But she didn't believe me because I couldn't offer her any proof. You know how Mom is, Dad. Jazz has to get it from somewhere, right? But I told her, and it just took a while for it to sink in. For her to accept it. But I think she gets it now. And you…. You can't be the only one not to know, Dad, and I don't want you to find out the hard way. Finding out this way is bad enough."

Jack still didn't move. And as much as he usually had to say, he found himself struck speechless.

Danny gave him a weak grin. Probably happy that he hadn't pulled any weapons on him yet, considering they weren't exactly in short supply. "Um…." He raised his arms as high as the cuffs would allow. "Goin' ghost?"

It came out uncertain, like a question. But that made it no less effective, whatever it was. A bright ring of light appeared around Danny's waist. As Jack watched, it split into two, quickly sweeping up and down over his body. When they faded, dissolving into the bright aura that surrounded the body, Jack found himself facing Danny Phantom.

He remembered all the times he'd thought Danny was a ghost and all the times Maddie had sighed, responding with an exasperated, _"Jack, Danny's not a ghost."_ He remembered the first time he'd turned the Ghost Gabber on and how its translation of Danny's speech then had been no different than it had been earlier today: _"I am a ghost. Fear me."_ He remembered the Fenton Finder, blithely saying that he must be some sort of moron to not notice the ghost directly ahead whenever he found himself face to face with Danny.

That Wisconsin Ghost was right after all. He _was_ an idiot.

He started to laugh.

"Uh, Dad?"

All those times he'd been presented with evidence, and he'd ignored it. Chalked it up to coincidences. Hadn't considered the truth.

Well, the truth hadn't actually crossed his mind, especially if this was it, but still. He'd never heard of anything like this. That didn't mean it was impossible, but to think, getting hit with that much ectoplasm and energy at once….

Couldn't've been much different than what had happened to Vladdy back in college, though Vlad didn't seem to come out of it with any ill effects except that hideous ecto-acne that they'd finally managed to cure. If this was an ill effect. Jack couldn't be sure. Danny kept trying to duck doctors and avoid appointments with an ease that had suggested he'd taken a page out of Tucker's book, but now Jack knew why.

"Hey, Dad, I, uh, get that this is a lot to take in, but, um, you do believe me, right? Because this isn't a trick, and I'm not nuts, and _you're_ not nuts, and, well, if you don't believe me, maybe phone Jazz? Or call Sam and Tuck over? They can vouch for me. They were here the day of the accident, remember?"

The ghost boy. Inviso-Bill. The ghost kid.

His son, Danny Fenton.

Another flash of light, and when Jack was able to focus again, he was looking into Danny's worried blue eyes. "Dad, are you okay?"

His son, Danny Phantom.

They'd had a ghost living under their own roof, and they hadn't even noticed. Some ghost hunters they were.

Poor Danny. No wonder he hadn't wanted to tell them. They'd probably scared him out of his wits. _He'd_ probably scared him out of his wits.

But the very idea….

"Dad?"

"I'm fine, son," Jack finally managed.

"You do get that it's me, right? Entirely me? _Only_ me?"

"I get it, Danny-boy," Jack said, smiling. "I get it." Even if he didn't entirely understand it—well, even if he didn't understand any of it—he got it.

"So you're not going to shoot me, right?"

Poor kid. This past year can't have been easy for him. "I'm not going to shoot you, Danny," he assured him as he pulled the key to the handcuffs from his pocket. Danny, who had tensed, relaxed when he saw the key. "But you have a lot of explaining to do."

* * *

"Jack?" Maddie called. "Danny?" She and Jazz had just gotten home, and from the looks Jazz was giving her, Maddie knew they were going to have to have a family talk now. It was better to squash her irrelevant fears of facing her son that had grown out of guilt than to sit through another lecture from her daughter and a week of silent glares if she put it off.

"They'll be here, or at least, Dad is," Jazz said. "The Assault Vehicle's still here." In a louder voice than Maddie's, she called, "Dad? Danny?"

"In the lab!" came Jack's answering shout.

Jazz paled and took off running. Maddie followed, knowing Jazz was thinking the worst and unable to offer her any comfort otherwise. Jack could be overzealous when it came to his work, she knew. She was, too, though not quite to the same extent.

The sight that met her eyes when she reached the bottom of the stairs didn't comfort her. Weapons were scattered everywhere. Green goo—ectoplasm samples, perhaps, or maybe the anti-ghost goo from the Fenton Foamer; she couldn't tell—coated part of the floor. She couldn't see Danny.

And then Jazz, who was a few feet ahead of her, shrieked.

Maddie's heart skipped a beat.

And then she heard Danny's unmistakable laugh, Jack's chuckle, and Jazz's angry but relieved exclamation: "_Danny_!"

"You scared me half to death," Jazz chided as she continued. "You have no idea what I was thinking when I saw that!"

Maddie moved closer to join them, and she caught sight of white hair and green eyes that were joined by a grin that was all too familiar to her. "I knew exactly what you were thinking," came the response. "That's why I did it." The eyes swivelled to her, noted how she was staring at his face and the slick green that covered the front of his suit, the sight that had so terrified Jazz, and the cheerful expression dropped. "Uh, hi, Mom."

It had been a week, and the idea still took some getting used to.

For her, anyway. How long had _Jack_ known? He certainly didn't look surprised, and she'd gotten the impression that neither of them had known.

She forced a smile onto her face anyway. "Hi, Danny," she said. And when she reached out to ruffle his hair and he let her, the smile on her face relaxed and stayed there.

It was Jazz who cleared her throat and looked pointedly between Danny and Jack. "When did you tell Dad?"

Danny glanced at his father. "Um, about an hour ago?"

"An _hour_?" Maddie couldn't stop the words from coming out of her mouth. "You didn't…. It didn't cross your mind to…?"

"I knew I had to tell him, Mom," Danny said. "Jazz told me last night that she figured you had figured it out, so I knew I couldn't keep this up. I would've waited until you got home, but, uh, Dad realized that whatever was wrong with me was a little more than just a little background contamination or whatever."

"He stuck his arm through the Fenton Ghost Catcher," Jack added.

Maddie could fill in the blanks from there. Jack had noticed that the ectoplasm in Danny's body was concentrated to the point that it had form. But now she felt terribly ashamed. Danny must think she'd overreacted, the way she'd taken the news. She hadn't believed him. Jack had. And if she were to judge by the bits of netting and burnt scraps of paper—along with the partial slab of fudge between them—she'd guess they'd been discussing it. And, in Danny's case, demonstrating some of what he could do.

"I'm sorry, Danny," Maddie said. "I should have believed you."

Danny gave her a hug. "It's okay, Mom. I told Dad more than I told you, and I could show him. I was actually kind of relieved that you didn't believe me at first. I mean, I'd thought I could get away with it."

"But you must have been disappointed, too," Maddie said quietly, keeping an arm around him. "When you told me the truth and I refused to believe it."

"That's the way you are, Mom," Danny said. "You're just like Jazz."

"_Hey_!"

Danny grinned at his sister. "You can't deny it. You didn't believe in ghosts until they showed up, either."

Jazz frowned and crossed her arms but didn't argue.

Jack pulled her into a fierce hug and she gave a squawk of surprise before hugging him back. "Cheer up, Jazzerincess," he said when he'd released her. "It's the one time I've been right and you've been wrong! That might never happen again."

"May not," Maddie agreed, remembering how astute her eldest had been even over the past weekend.

The lab was a mess, but it didn't matter. They were a family, they were together, and they were happy. There weren't any secrets between them anymore.

Although Danny had a _lot_ of explaining to do.

"You're going to let Danny continue doing what he's doing, right?" Jazz said after a moment. "Because he's doing the right thing?"

"He's risking his life," Maddie protested immediately.

Jack put a hand on her arm. "He's been doing it for a long time, Mads."

As if Jack's words had been the cue, Jazz's voice played in Maddie's head, repeating what she'd said last week: _"Danny can take care of himself. He's been doing it for a while now."_

"I've got to do this, Mom," Danny said. "It's my fault the town's in danger, anyway. I kind of, uh, accidentally showed the ghosts where our portal is." There was more to it than that, Maddie knew. Danny hadn't said it all, or at least, he hadn't said the main reason. He was still keeping things back from her. Things he knew she didn't want to hear.

But she'd watched enough of Phantom's fights to have a terrible feeling that she knew at least one of the other reasons.

"And there'll just be questions and speculation if Danny Phantom stops protecting the town or disappears altogether," Jazz pointed out.

"Wouldn't there be just as much if we stop hunting him without explanation?" Maddie asked. She hated the thought of even having to keep up the pretence, but if Danny had so fiercely protected this secret from everyone—from _them_—she didn't want to endanger it.

Jazz shrugged. "Next time something big comes up, take the truce when Danny offers it. The Red Huntress has before. And just don't call it off. Keep working with him. Pretend it's on a temporary basis, a trial if you like, but if people see you working together, they'll be more accepting of it." Jazz put a comforting hand on Danny's shoulder and added, "Besides, collaborating with Danny Phantom will give you an instant insight into almost every ghost that you've seen in Amity Park. Danny keeps his own files."

"Face it, Mom," Danny added. "If you guys didn't figure it out, who else is going to?"

"I can think of someone," Jazz muttered, and Danny elbowed her.

Maddie raised her eyebrows. "This isn't going to be the end of the secrets between us, is it?" It wasn't a realization she liked, but her children's actions had just confirmed it.

Danny gave her a rueful smile. "I can't tell you everyone else's secrets."

Jazz shot Danny a surprised look. "You mean that? You're not even going to tell them about…?"

Jazz trailed off, but Danny seemed to know what she was getting at. He nodded. "Not yet."

"One thing at a time, huh?"

"Hold on," Maddie said. "How much are we missing here, exactly? I thought…. Danny, your secret, it's…. I just get used to the idea, and now you're as good as telling me that it's just the tip of the iceberg?"

"It's been a year, Mom," Danny reminded her.

"And a secret like that snowballs," Jazz added. "Danny hasn't told me everything, either. I'm not even convinced he's told Sam and Tucker everything, even though I keep telling him he has to tell someone."

"Baby steps, Maddie," Jack said. "It took me almost an hour to get the story of last weekend out of Danny. It'll be a while before they tell us everything."

Maddie pursed her lips, remembering the mess of the lab and what else she suspected had gone on in that hour. She glanced at Danny, finally asking, "Even if we are ready to hear it?"

"He has to be ready to tell it," Jazz reminded her.

"We can make this work, Mom," Danny said. "Please. Just give me a chance. I can handle this, okay? I've managed it with Sam and Tucker and Jazz. If you guys pitch in and help, too, you won't need to worry."

"_I help him a bit,"_ Jazz had told her, _"but Danny's strong and sensible, and he's handled things wonderfully. I would have thought you'd be proud."_

She was proud, now that she understood.

She was also terrified.

And a glance at Jack's face told her that the decision lay with her, for all that he was the patriarch. He'd support her in whatever she chose. But if he was the one making the decisions, she suspected he'd side with Danny without hesitation.

This meant, after all, that Danny had an active interest in ghost hunting. For all that he had taken his own path, for all that he was…half ghost, he was still following his father's footsteps. And Jack knew that. He couldn't be happier.

She'd promised herself, back when Jazz had been born, that she would let her children take their own path. She'd known Jack would be encouraging them to take up ghost hunting enough for the both of them, though she suspected she'd done more encouraging of her own than she liked to admit. When Jazz had taken an interest in psychology, and Danny an interest in astronomy, she hadn't stifled it. She'd encouraged it as best she could.

After all, she was only where she was now because she'd been allowed to create her own path, to beat out her own unique track. Alicia had been given the same opportunity by their parents. They'd both taken vastly different trails, ending up in different lives, and they both enjoyed them to the fullest. It had meant making mistakes, overcoming setbacks and celebrating small successes. It had meant, at times, facing ridicule. It had meant taking risks.

She couldn't very well deny Danny the same opportunity she'd had.

She smiled at him, recognizing all the features of her son that she'd never allowed herself to see in the ghost who had been her hated enemy, Danny Phantom. "Yes," she agreed softly. "We can make this work."

* * *

A/N: Et c'est fini. There you have it, folks. What may have happened after the end of _Connections_, complete with the undeniable revelation that Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom on the part of both Fenton parents. And if you're wondering why Dani's ecto-signature never came up, well, I'm not sure that the Fentons are even aware of her existence, so we'll just say she's not on file.

Thanks to everyone who has followed this story and especially to those who have taken the time to review, namely Fluehatraya, Song of the Skies, Sulky Shadow, Amazing Bluie, NeverEnough15, ulimo, DizzlyPuzzled, Pheek, HalfafanD, MsFrizzle, Turkeyhead987, TheL3monTart, jeanette9a, Invader Johnny, hopeistheway, seantriana, luvdannyphantom, DragonAce1999, Baracudaz, fairyana, Pandombie, lion799, TheOneWhoStillBelieves, BeachCat, ChopSuzi, Fan, and LuNa.


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